


On the trail

by m_findlow



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 03:26:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16610999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_findlow/pseuds/m_findlow
Summary: The rift doesn't care where it dumps things, Torchwood still have to go and get them.





	On the trail

**Author's Note:**

  * For [badly_knitted](https://archiveofourown.org/users/badly_knitted/gifts).



'My feet are cold and wet,' Jack moaned as they ploughed through the thick snow.

'Well, I did offer for you to change your shoes. There were spare wellingtons in the SUV,' Ianto replied, grateful for the pair he was wearing. They weren't pretty, but they did the job, and that was all that mattered.

'And the bottom of my coat is soaked, too.'

'Well, that's my hopes dashed,' Ianto quipped. 'I was rather looking forward to being bundled up in your nice warm coat when we got back to the car. Now I'll just be bundled with your cold sodden coat, which will need dry cleaning.'

'Grrr,' Jack said, tugging the end of his coat out of the mushy snow.

'You really need a shorter coat. I wouldn't have to clean it so often if you didn't drag it through every kind of muck imaginable.'

'I wouldn't look nearly as dashing, though.'

'True.'

Jack puffed out clouds of mist in the frigid air, and secretly wished he'd taken gloves with him, like his more sensible other half, but he wouldn't admit it. 'How come you're not complaining?'

'If I did, it wouldn't leave you with anything else to do.'

'Har har.'

It was so cold even Jack wasn't tempted to start a snow fight. There was quite enough snow falling down the back of his coat and seeping into his collar as it was. He also knew he wouldn't be popular if he tried, and any hopes he had of cuddling up to Ianto for warmth later would be very slim indeed.

'I thought you liked the snow?' Ianto asked, sensing his despondency.

'It was great for the first thirty years. Having spent the first seventeen years of my life of a planet that was wall to wall sand and beaches, it was definitely a novelty.'

'What changed your mind?'

'Three winters stuck in the trenches in France. I've never been so cold in my entire life. Half the mornings I woke up I swear I'd died during the night. Some mornings I woke up and found fellow troops dead next to me, so I'm pretty sure there were plenty of nights where I did.'

Ianto said nothing. He felt frozen to the core just listening to Jack's story. 'It must have been horrible.'

'It was.'

Ianto couldn't imagine it. Being a young man in a war zone. Sure, Torchwood was dangerous, but he wasn't spending every day and every night terrified and trying to kill people, knowing that they wanted nothing more than to kill him, just because the powers that be had decided they were enemies.

Ianto tucked a glove arm around Jack's. He never knew quite what to do in these instances, but Jack always appreciated physical contact.

They ploughed on through the sparse forest, grateful that the bitter wind had eased, taking with it the falling snow. The lifting weather conditions seemed to have also lifted their spirits, as the started jokingly trying to push one another over into passing snowdrifts.

Finally they managed to hone in on the signal of their rift refugee, located in a small clearing, ringed by barren, icicle covered trees.

'Well, that's got to be about the most anticlimactic thing I've ever seen,' Jack declared.

'I didn't know the rift did irony.'

Parked in the clearing in three feet of snow was a 1980's refrigerator.

'Well, we're not going to be able to carry that back, let alone fit it in the boot,' Jack said. 

'Maybe we should come back in the summer and see if it's turned into a beach umbrella.'


End file.
